“The 30 glorious years of globalization are over. We have to bury the idea of a global market,” Wifo head Gabriel Felbermayr told the “Augsburger Allgemeine” (Thursday edition). The world economy is now splitting again into individual blocs in the West, an area of influence dominated by China, an increasingly emancipatory India and an isolating Russia.
financial market crisis
“Since the financial market crisis of 2008 and 2009 it has become clear that hyperglobalization is over,” said the former director of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW). “No later than Donald Trump’s economic war and Russian invasion, it has become clear that a new Iron Curtain is likely to be lowered between the West and the Russian sphere of influence.”
“People pay the policy bill”
Felbermayr criticized German policy in recent years: “Here, few people in the energy industry and politics in Germany made the wrong decision to become so dependent on Russia,” the expert told the paper. This high degree of dependence contradicts all basic economic principles. “Citizens are now footing the bill for this policy.” Austria is relatively more dependent on Russian gas than Germany.
enrichments
Before the war in Ukraine, many people in Austria, Germany and Russia benefited from the business model, Felbermayr said. The German people have the right to know who in the government promoted which decisions.